The Society Pageshttps://thesocietypages.org/RSS feed for all blogs on The Society Pagesen-usMon, 19 Mar 2018 13:11:48 +0000Celluloid Graveyards: Digging up the Past in Eastern European Filmhttps://thesocietypages.org/holocaust-genocide/celluloid-graveyards-digging-up-the-past-in-eastern-european-film/Film, since its inception, has played a significant role in capturing history. It has given us ways to explore events in the past while contemplating the present. Art (it would seem) is ahead of politics, especially in matters of examining the painful realities of World War II in Eastern Europe. In recent years there has [&#8230;]Jodi Elowitz at Center for Holocaust & Genocide StudiesMon, 19 Mar 2018 13:11:48 +0000https://thesocietypages.org/holocaust-genocide/celluloid-graveyards-digging-up-the-past-in-eastern-european-film/<p>Film, since its inception, has played a significant role in capturing history. It has given us ways to explore events in the past while contemplating the present. Art (it would seem) is ahead of politics, especially in matters of examining the painful realities of World War II in Eastern Europe. In recent years there has been a dangerous trend in Poland and Hungary in revising history to fit a political narrative.</p>
<p>Both Poland and Hungary have been trying to balance Democracy and the rise of right wing political parties, who are determined to use the Holocaust to rewrite historical narratives to create nationalistic pride, directly contradicting their past and present. Poland and Hungary along with Ukraine, Lithuania and Latvia, are all experiencing revisionist movements. Historian John Paul Himka believes part of the problem is how these once double occupied countries (by Germany and the Soviet Union) dealt with false historical narratives or “myths” they were told under post-war Soviet occupation, once they were free of Communism. Himka states in their hurry to join the West, they did not take the necessary time and care to explore their wartime roles, allowing for a division between memory and fact.</p>
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<p>Poland has been making news after Polish President Andrzej Duda signed controversial legislation which criminalizes any mention of Poles “being responsible or complicit in the Nazi crimes committed by the Third German Reich.” The legislation is very strong on reserving the harshest penalties (of up to 3-year prison sentence) for those who refer to Nazi-era concentration camps as “Polish death camps.” The only exemptions from the law is scientific research and artistic work about the war.</p>
<p><a href="https://thesocietypages.org/holocaust-genocide/files/2018/03/images-1.jpeg"><img alt="" class=" wp-image-2368 alignright" height="285" src="https://thesocietypages.org/holocaust-genocide/files/2018/03/images-1.jpeg" width="190" /></a>It is interesting that art is exempted, but one must wonder who will determine what is or is not art, or what will be acceptable to the Polish government. The right factions of the government have already shown their hand in how they received the two critically acclaimed films <a href="https://thesocietypages.org/holocaust-genocide/aftermath-the-fragility-of-holocaust-memory-in-poland-as-depicted-in-film/"><em>Aftermath</em></a> and <a href="http://holocaust-genocdiestudies.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-past-cannot-remain-buried-polish.html"><em>Ida</em></a>, which deal with the controversial issue of the complicity of Poles in the destruction of their Jewish populations. Both films were labeled anti-Polish, with claims that they inaccurately portrayed Polish actions during WWII.</p>
<p><em>Aftermath</em> was controversial because it was based on historian Jan Gross’ work <em>Neighbors</em>, which explores the murder of the Jews of Jedwabne by the town’s Poles in July of 1941. The films deal with the myth that it was the Germans who had killed the Jews. The massacre has always been a controversial topic since the release of the book in 2001, and Gross has been the subject of ongoing outrage as he has been repeatedly denounced by Polish right-wing scholars and politicians for defaming the Polish people. <em>Ida,</em> originally less controversial, became targeted after it won an Academy Award for best foreign film in 2015. In 2016, it was televised on Polish TV with a 12-minute government sanctioned documentary defaming the film.</p>
<p><a href="https://thesocietypages.org/holocaust-genocide/files/2018/03/ida-1024x811.jpg"><img alt="" class="wp-image-2360 alignleft" height="211" src="https://thesocietypages.org/holocaust-genocide/files/2018/03/ida-1024x811-1024x811.jpg" width="266" /></a>The two films have lead the way to a new movement in Eastern European Holocaust cinema, which examines the actions of the bystanders and the benefactors of the crimes against Jews. Both <em>Aftermath </em>and <em>Ida</em> dig up the past by recovering the secrets buried in unmarked graves across Eastern Europe, exposing the living more so than the dead for as the graves yield their secrets. Those who hoped to bury their crimes in the past must now deal with them in the present, with tragic results.</p>
<p>The latest film to tackle this theme is <a href="https://www.menemshafilms.com/1945"><em>1945</em></a>, a Hungarian film released in 2017, directed by Ferenc Török, based on the short story &#8220;Homecoming&#8221; by Gábor T. Szántó. The film definitely takes its cues from <em>Aftermath</em> and <em>Ida</em>, sharing both films’ quest for the truth through the lens of 1930’s Hollywood horror and art house film. In <em>1945</em>, two unknown Jewish men visit a small Hungarian town in the aftermath of World War II. The appearance of the two men sends the town immediately into panic as they reflect on their guilt while rationalizing their behavior towards the missing Jews of the town, whose belongings, homes and businesses they have possessed. Like, <em>Aftermath</em> and <em>Ida</em>, the townspeople are haunted by their actions, but in <em>1945</em>, burial has a much different meaning. Filmed in black and white, the film also feels like an old western, with tensions that build towards a showdown between the strangers and the townspeople.</p>
<p>It would not hurt for Eastern Europe to look to modern Germany, who after decades of self-reflection and dealing with their past, have accepted responsibility for their actions during World War II. Certainly, this is not easily done, and of course the ghosts of Hitler and the Third Reich will always loom over Germany. Nevertheless, if a country is to thrive, it must examine and learn from its past, admit its wrongs, and accept responsibility before they become the thing they valiantly claim to have fought against. Until then, we will have to hope that more filmmakers in these countries will continue to dig up the past and reveal the truth so that people can remember and honor the dead, as well as truly be able to bury the past in a way that allows them to move forward.</p>
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<p><em>Jodi Elowitz is the director of education at the Center for Holocaust and Humanity.</em></p>Open Internet Pledge from U.S Citieshttps://thesocietypages.org/dean/2018/03/18/open-internet-pledge-from-u-s-cities/More than a dozen United States cities have pledged to pressure Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to honor net neutrality, in response to last year&#8217;s Federal Communications Commission’s decision to eliminate requirements for equal access to the Internet, so now ISPs can block content, throttle speeds to some sites or services, or give preferential treatment to others. [&#8230;]Walt Jacobs at Dispatches from a DeanSun, 18 Mar 2018 23:10:00 +0000https://thesocietypages.org/dean/2018/03/18/open-internet-pledge-from-u-s-cities/<p>More than a dozen United States cities have <a href="https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/03/net-neutrality-executive-orders-fcc-mayors-bill-de-blasio/555344/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">pledged to pressure Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to honor net neutrality</a>, in response to last year&#8217;s Federal Communications Commission’s decision to eliminate requirements for equal access to the Internet, so now ISPs can block content, throttle speeds to some sites or services, or give preferential treatment to others. According to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, &#8220;We’re gonna use our economic power to force the hands of these companies. We’re gonna build a movement among other cities.&#8221; It will interesting to see if this movement really takes off. Perhaps it may even lead to a resurgence of <a href="https://thesocietypages.org/dean/2013/12/05/technorealism/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">technorealism</a>. We&#8217;ll see&#8230;</p>Gender, Bitcoin and Altcoinshttps://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2018/03/16/gender-bitcoin-and-altcoins/Despite the fact that women played a key role in the development of modern technology, the digital domain is a disproportionately male space. Recent stories about the politics of GamerGate, “tech bros” in Silicon Valley, and resistance to diversity routinely surface despite efforts of companies such as Google to clean up their act by firing [&#8230;]Joseph Gelfer PhD at Sociological ImagesFri, 16 Mar 2018 15:50:25 +0000https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2018/03/16/gender-bitcoin-and-altcoins/<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Despite the fact that <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/10/06/345799830/the-forgotten-female-programmers-who-created-modern-tech"><span class="s2">women played a key role</span></a> in the development of modern technology, the digital domain is a disproportionately male space. Recent stories about the politics of GamerGate, “tech bros” in Silicon Valley, and resistance to diversity <a href="https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/technology/toxic-masculinity-in-silicon-valley/article35759481/"><span class="s2">routinely surface</span></a> despite efforts of companies such as Google to clean up their act by <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/labor-board-rules-google-firing-james-damore-was-legal/"><span class="s2">firing</span></a> reactionary male employees.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The big tech story of the past year is unquestionably cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. So it’s a good time to look at how cryptos replicate the gender politics of digital spaces and where they might complicate them.</span></p>
<h3 class="p1"><span class="s1">Women’s Representation</span></h3>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1">Crypto holders are not evenly divided between men and women. <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-24/a-look-at-who-owns-bitcoin-young-men-and-why-lack-of-trust"><span class="s2">One recent</span></a> survey shows that 71% of Bitcoin holders are male. The first challenge for women is simply their representation within the crypto space.</span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1">There are various efforts on the part of individual women to address the imbalance. For example, Stacy Herbert, co-host of <i>The Keiser Report</i>, has recently been discussing the possibility of a women’s crypto conference <a href="https://twitter.com/stacyherbert/status/951609805101260804"><span class="s2">noting</span></a>, “I know so so many really smart women in the space but you go to these events and it’s panels of all the same guys again and again.” Technology commentator Alexia Tsotsis <a href="https://twitter.com/alexia/status/956569295017906176"><span class="s2">recently tweeted</span></a>, “Women, consider crypto. Otherwise the men are going to get all the wealth, again.”</span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1">Clearly, the macho nature of the crypto community can feel exclusionary to women. Recently <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-01/a-bitcoin-conference-rented-a-miami-strip-club-regrets-ensued"><span class="s2">Bloomberg reported</span></a> on a Bitcoin conference in Miami that invited attendees to an after-hours networking event held in a strip club. As one female attendee noted, “There was a message being sent to women, that, ‘OK, this isn’t really your place … this is where the boys roll.’”</span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s1">The image of women as presented by altcoins (cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin) is also telling. One can buy into <a href="https://tittiecoin.com/"><span class="s2">TittieCoin</span></a> or <a href="https://www.bigboobscoin.info/home"><span class="s2">BigBoobsCoin</span></a>, which need no further explanation. There is also an altcoin designed to resist this tendency, <a href="https://www.women-coin.com/"><span class="s2">Women Coin</span></a>: “Women coin will become the ultimate business coin for women. We all know that this altcoin market is mainly operated by men, just like the entire world. We want to stop this.”</span></p>
<h3 class="p1"><span class="s1">Cryptomasculinities</span></h3>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1">The male dominance of cryptos suggests it is a space that celebrates normative masculinity. Certain celebrity endorsements of crypto projects have added to this mood, such as heavyweight boxer <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/that-floyd-mayweather-backed-cryptocurrency-barely-survives-its-first-round-2017-09-07"><span class="s2">Floyd Mayweather</span></a>, actor <a href="http://fortune.com/2018/02/20/steven-seagal-cryptocurrency/"><span class="s2">Steven Seagal</span></a> and rapper <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/04/wu-tang-clans-ghostface-killah-is-backing-a-cryptocurrency-venture.html"><span class="s2">Ghostface Killah</span></a>. Crypto evangelist John McAfee routinely posts comments and pictures concerning guns, hookers and drugs. Reactionary responses to feminism can also be found: for example, patriarchal revivalist website Return of Kings published <a href="http://www.returnofkings.com/150239/bitcoin-proves-that-the-glass-ceiling-keeping-women-down-is-a-myth"><span class="s2">an article</span></a> claiming, “Bitcoin proves that that ‘glass ceiling’ keeping women down is a myth.” Homophobia also occurs: when leading Bitcoin advocate Andreas Antonopoulos announced he was making a donation to the LGBTQ-focused Lambda Legal he received an array of <a href="https://twitter.com/aantonop/status/945053807872020480"><span class="s2">homophobic comments</span></a>.</span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1">However, it would be wrong to assume the masculinity promoted in the crypto space is monolithic. In particular, it is possible to identify a division between Bitcoin and altcoin holders. Consider the following image:</span></p>
<p><img alt="" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-72290" height="254" src="https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/files/2018/03/Crypto-500x254.png" width="500" /></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">This image <a href="https://twitter.com/_Kevin_Pham/status/927795191985012736"><span class="s2">was tweeted</span></a> with the caption “Bitcoin and Ethereum community can’t be anymore different.” On the left we have a MAGA hat-wearing, gun-toting Bitcoin holder; on the right the supposedly effeminate Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of the blockchain platform Ethereum. The longer you spend reading user-generated content in the crypto space, the more you get the sense that Bitcoin is “for men” while altcoins are framed as for snowflakes and SJWs.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">There is an exception to this Bitcoin/altcoin gendered distinction: privacy coins such as Monero and Zcash appear to be deemed acceptably manly. Perhaps it is a coincidence that such altcoins are favored by <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/wikileaks-accept-additional-cryptocurrencies-donations/"><span class="s2">Julian Assange</span></a>, who has his own checkered history with gender politics ranging from his famed “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/08/israel-shamir-julian-assange-cult-machismo"><span class="s2">masculinity test</span></a>” through to the recent <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/02/14/julian-assange-wikileaks-election-clinton-trump/"><span class="s2">quips about feminists</span></a> reported by <i>The Intercept</i>.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">In conclusion, it is not surprising that the crypto space appears to be predominantly male and even outright resistant to fair representations of women. Certainly, it is not too dramatic to state that Bitcoin has a hyper-masculine culture, but Bitcoin does not represent the whole crypto space, and as both altcoins and other blockchain-based services become more diverse it is likely that so too will its representations of gender.</span></p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;"><em>Joseph Gelfer is a researcher of men and masculinities. His books include </em>Numen, Old Men: Contemporary Masculine Spiritualities<em> and </em>The Problem of Patriarchy and Masculinities in a Global Era<em>. He is currently developing a new model for understanding masculinity, <a href="http://www.masculinityresearch.com/">The Five Stages of Masculinity</a>.</em></p>
<p>(<a href="https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2018/03/16/gender-bitcoin-and-altcoins/">View original at https://thesocietypages.org/socimages</a>)</p>The Politics of Blaming Single Mothers for Povertyhttps://thesocietypages.org/clippings/2018/03/16/the-politics-of-blaming-single-mothers-for-poverty/Research on poverty often focuses on economic differences between married and nonmarried people, especially mothers. However, in a recent New York Times op-ed, David Brady, Ryan M. Finnigan and Sabine Hübgen push back against common cultural arguments, like criticism about having children outside of marriage, that blame single mothers for poverty. Instead, the authors ask [&#8230;]Jean Marie DeOrnellas at ClippingsFri, 16 Mar 2018 14:00:43 +0000https://thesocietypages.org/clippings/2018/03/16/the-politics-of-blaming-single-mothers-for-poverty/<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Research on poverty often focuses on economic differences between married and nonmarried people, especially mothers. However, in a recent </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">New York Times</span></i> <a href="https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/02/10/opinion/sunday/single-mothers-poverty.html?referer=http://m.facebook.com"><span style="font-weight: 400;">op-ed</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, </span><a href="http://facultyprofiles.ucr.edu/spp_dept/faculty/David_Brady/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">D</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">avid Brady</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, </span><a href="http://sociology.ucdavis.edu/people/rfinniga"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ryan M. Finnigan</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> and </span><a href="https://www.wzb.eu/en/persons/sabine-huebgen"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Sabine Hübgen</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> push back against common cultural arguments, like criticism about having children outside of marriage, that blame single mothers for poverty. Instead, the authors ask why the United States responds to economic struggle with stigmatization and punishment rather than assistance. </span></p>
<figure class="wp-caption alignleft" id="attachment_6704"><img alt="" class="wp-image-6704" height="311" src="https://thesocietypages.org/clippings/files/2018/03/mother.jpg" width="250" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Photo Credit: Taymaz Valley, Flickr CC</figcaption></figure>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The op-ed follows their recent </span><a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/693678"><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">American Journal of Sociology</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> article</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, which used data from the Luxemborg Income Study to find that single motherhood is both more rare and less consequential for the poverty rate than would be expected based on the popular imagination. The op-ed reads, </span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">&#8220;If single motherhood in the United States were in the middle of the pack among rich democracies instead of the third highest, poverty among working-age households would be less than 1 percentage point lower — 15.4 percent instead of 16.1 percent. If we returned to the 1970 share of single motherhood, poverty would decline a tiny amount — from 16.1 percent to 15.98. If, magically, there were no single mothers in the United States, the poverty rate would still be 14.8 percent.&#8221;</span></p></blockquote>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Instead of single motherhood as a factor that increases poverty, Brady, Finnigan, and Hubgen claim that political choices in the United States punish single motherhood &#8212; as well as the other poverty risk factors of unemployment, low levels of education and forming households at young ages &#8212; more than other rich democracies. </span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">&#8220;The reality is we have unusually high poverty because we have unusually high penalties for all four of these risk factors. For example, if you lack a high school degree in the United States, it increases the probability of your being in poverty by 16.4 percent. In the 28 other rich democracies, a lack of education increases the probability of poverty by less than 5 percent on average. No other country penalizes the less educated nearly as much as we do.&#8221;</span></p></blockquote>The Social Science of Spring Breakhttps://thesocietypages.org/trot/2018/03/15/the-social-science-of-spring-break/As students get ready for spring break, many leave their textbooks and syllabi behind. They may be unaware that partying is packed with sociological ideas. In fact, sociologists have long observed how norms and customs shape the way people experience festivals and celebrations. Over a century ago, French sociologist Emile Durkheim argued that rituals, celebrations, [&#8230;]Neeraj Rajasekar at There's Research on ThatThu, 15 Mar 2018 14:00:47 +0000https://thesocietypages.org/trot/2018/03/15/the-social-science-of-spring-break/<figure class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_1899"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-1899" height="401" src="https://thesocietypages.org/trot/files/2018/03/Spring-Break.jpg" width="603" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Photo Credit: Sun International, Flickr CC</figcaption></figure>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">As students get ready for spring break, many leave their textbooks and syllabi behind. They may be unaware that partying is <i>packed </i>with sociological ideas. In fact, sociologists have long observed how norms and customs shape the way people experience festivals and celebrations. Over a century ago, French sociologist Emile Durkheim argued that rituals, celebrations, and festivals are integral parts of society’s function and build solidarity among communities. Rituals can involve small, everyday conversations with other people as well as large festivals, concerts, and major sporting events. Spring break partying, traveling, and interactions are all modern examples of this social process. </span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s2"><a href="https://www.iep.utm.edu/durkheim/">Emile Durkheim</a></span><span class="s3">. 1915.<a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&amp;lr=&amp;id=eEk1AwAAQBAJ&amp;oi=fnd&amp;pg=PP1&amp;dq=emile+durkheim&amp;ots=DT7o16Oay8&amp;sig=lHZs105y6Ke59rqVrKqQs_en2jc#v=onepage&amp;q=emile%2520durkheim&amp;f=false"><span class="s4"> <i>The Elementary Forms of Religious Life</i>. </span></a> New York: Dover Publications, INC.</span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s2"><a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/erving-goffman-3026489">Erving Goffman</a></span><span class="s3">. 1967. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&amp;lr=&amp;id=qDhd138pPBAC&amp;oi=fnd&amp;pg=PR7&amp;dq=erving+goffman&amp;ots=9jY_MSeAyp&amp;sig=xT6MxzfGmSvLW5UpzVOfKPGbJms#v=onepage&amp;q=erving%2520goffman&amp;f=false"><span class="s4"><i>Interaction Rituals: Essays in Face to Face Behavior.</i></span></a> Chicago: Aldine Transaction. </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Recent work has emphasized one particular ritual in which college students take part: partying. This research details how contemporary norms and common practices regarding partying like hookups, hazing, and excessive alcohol use have become a large part of the college culture. Sociologists are also showing,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>however, that popular images of spring break and college life do not always match reality. In particular, partying can produce inequalities in access and safety, particularly for women, racial/ethnic minorities, and low-income students. In short, college partying remains an eminently social phenomenon, shaped by social forces, histories, and ideas. </span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s2"><a href="https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/elizabetharmstrong/">Elizabeth A. Armstrong</a></span><span class="s3"> and <a href="https://www.ucmerced.edu/content/laura-hamilton"><span class="s4">Laura T.Hamilton</span></a>. 2013. <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674088023&amp;content=reviews"><span class="s4"><i>Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality.</i></span></a> Cambridge: Harvard University Press.</span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s2"><a href="https://lisa-wade.com/">Lisa Wade</a></span><span class="s3">. 2017.<i> </i><a href="http://books.wwnorton.com/books/American-Hookup/"><span class="s4"><i>American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus</i></span></a><i>. </i>New York: W.W. Norton and Company.</span></p>Do Sports Fans Revel by Rampaging?https://thesocietypages.org/clippings/2018/03/14/do-sports-fans-revel-by-rampaging/From the Super Bowl to March Madness, sporting celebrations raise questions about rioting every year. After their Super Bowl victory in February, Eagles fans took to the streets, looting and toppling light poles. A recent article in the Washington Post delves into the sociological and psychological explanations for why fans are often violent and destructive [&#8230;]Jenn Edwards at ClippingsWed, 14 Mar 2018 18:42:28 +0000https://thesocietypages.org/clippings/2018/03/14/do-sports-fans-revel-by-rampaging/<figure class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_6700"><img alt="" class="wp-image-6700" height="333" src="https://thesocietypages.org/clippings/files/2018/03/fans-e1521052808754.jpg" width="500" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Photo by Ben Sutherland, Flickr CC</figcaption></figure>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">From the Super Bowl to March Madness, sporting celebrations raise questions about rioting every year. After their Super Bowl victory in February, Eagles fans took to the streets, looting and toppling light poles. A recent article in the </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/02/05/why-do-fans-riot-after-a-win-the-science-behind-philadelphias-super-bowl-chaos/?utm_term=.0d37a60beb0d"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Washington Post</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> delves into the sociological and psychological explanations for why fans are often violent and destructive after a massive victory.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Sociologist </span><a href="https://www.kent.edu/sociology/profile/jerry-m-lewis"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Jerry M. Lewis</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> has studied fan violence for decades, looking at the statistics on sport fan riots since the 1960s . He notes that fan violence in the United States usually consists of people destroying inanimate objects, while in other countries, and especially Europe, violence is directed toward opposing fan bases. Lewis explains that the sports rioting in the US almost always happens after a major victory rather than a loss, as a form of identification with the victorious team. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In the US, sports rioters tend to be young, white males. These passionate fans react excitedly to their favorite teams, reveling in victory and adrenaline which, in this case, results in destruction of city property. Lewis expands,</span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“They can’t throw a football 60 yards like the quarterback can, but they can throw a rock </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">through the window or pull down a light pole. To them, it becomes their feat of strength and skill.”</span></p></blockquote>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Lewis provides an interesting contrast in the public perceptions of sports rioters compared to those who protest or riot because of social upheaval. Media and public understandings of riots seem to depend on who participates, and what is often described as a riot is defined along racial lines. Because of this, sports fans can celebrate while they cause destruction, but protesters often reap the disadvantages.</span></p>What’s Trending? The Popularity of Gun Controlhttps://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2018/03/14/whats-trending-the-popularity-of-gun-control/Today students across the country are walking out of school to protest violence and demand gun control reform. Where do Americans stand on this issue, and have their views changed over time? Government policy makes it difficult to research gun violence in the United States, but we do have some trend data from the General Social [&#8230;]Ryan Larson and Evan Stewart at Sociological ImagesWed, 14 Mar 2018 15:12:20 +0000https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2018/03/14/whats-trending-the-popularity-of-gun-control/<p>Today students across the country are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/14/us/school-walkout.html">walking out of school</a> to protest violence and demand gun control reform. Where do Americans stand on this issue, and have their views changed over time? Government policy makes it <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/02/gun-violence-public-health/553430/">difficult to research gun violence in the United States</a>, but we do have some trend data from the <a href="http://gss.norc.org/">General Social Survey</a> that offers important context about how Americans view this issue.</p>
<p>For over forty years, the GSS has been asking its respondents whether they &#8220;favor or oppose a law which would require a person to obtain a police permit before he or she could buy a gun&#8221;—a simple measure to take the temperature on basic support for gun control. Compared to other controversial social policies, there is actually widespread and consistent <em>support</em> for this kind of gun control.</p>
<figure class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_72285"><a href="https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/files/2018/03/Gun-Control-1.png" title=""><img alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-72285" height="368" src="https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/files/2018/03/Gun-Control-1-500x368.png" width="500" /></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">(Click to Enlarge)</figcaption></figure>
<p>In light of the Second Amendment, however, the U.S. has a reputation for having a strong pro-gun culture. Is this true? It turns out there has been a dramatic shift in the proportion of respondents who report even having a gun in their homes. Despite this trend, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/29/american-gun-ownership-is-now-at-a-30-year-low/?utm_term=.d0361c8ca5e1">gun sales are still high</a>, suggesting that those sales are concentrated among people who already own a gun.</p>
<figure class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_72286"><a href="https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/files/2018/03/Gun-Control-2.png" title=""><img alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-72286" height="358" src="https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/files/2018/03/Gun-Control-2-500x358.png" width="500" /></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">(Click to Enlarge)</figcaption></figure>
<p>Recent controversies over gun control can make it seem like the nation is deeply and <em>evenly</em> divided. These data provide an important reminder that gun control is actually pretty popular, even though views on the issue <a href="https://twitter.com/stevenvmiller/status/914815853551644672">have become more politically polarized over time</a>.</p>
<p><em>Inspired by<a href="https://familyinequality.wordpress.com/2017/08/21/demographic-facts-your-students-should-know-cold/"> demographic facts you should know cold, </a>“What’s Trending?” is a post series at Sociological Images featuring quick looks at what’s up, what’s down, and what sociologists have to say about it.</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://twitter.com/ryanplarson">Ryan Larson<b></b></a> is a graduate student from the Department of Sociology, University of Minnesota – Twin Cities. He studies crime, punishment, and quantitative methodology. He is a member of the Graduate Editorial Board of </em>The Society Pages<em>, and his work has appeared in </em>Poetics, Contexts<em>, and </em>Sociological Perspectives<em>.</em></p>
<p><i><a href="https://sites.google.com/a/umn.edu/estewart/">Evan Stewart</a> is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of Minnesota. You can follow him on <a href="https://twitter.com/EvanStewart23">Twitter</a>.</i></p>
<p>(<a href="https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2018/03/14/whats-trending-the-popularity-of-gun-control/">View original at https://thesocietypages.org/socimages</a>)</p>3Q: Estrangement and the Bridge between Parent and Childhttps://thesocietypages.org/ccf/2018/03/14/estrangement-and-the-bridge-between-parent-and-child/These days—perhaps as in every generation—relationships between grown children and their parents have changed. Parents and grown children expect to be friends. Many have that experience. But, remarkably, Joshua Coleman finds that perhaps thanks to this closeness there also are profound falling-outs. Coleman works with families where parents and adult children have been estranged and [&#8230;]Luilly Gonzalez at Council on Contemporary FamiliesWed, 14 Mar 2018 13:36:23 +0000https://thesocietypages.org/ccf/2018/03/14/estrangement-and-the-bridge-between-parent-and-child/<p>These days—perhaps as in every generation—relationships between grown children and their parents have changed. Parents and <img alt="" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-1545" height="300" src="https://thesocietypages.org/ccf/files/2018/03/Dr.-Colemans-Book-200x300.jpg" width="200" /> grown children expect to be friends. Many have that experience. But, remarkably, <a href="https://www.drjoshuacoleman.com/">Joshua Coleman</a> finds that perhaps thanks to this closeness there also are profound falling-outs. Coleman works with families where parents and adult children have been estranged and his book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/When-Parents-Hurt-Compassionate-Strategies/dp/0061148423/ref=sr_1_3/104-2233868-3378315?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1173897620&amp;sr=8-3">When Parents Hurt</a>, is a resource for those isolated parents who wonder “am I the only one?”</p>
<p>Coleman is a psychologist at San Francisco Bay and a past Co-Chair of the Council on Contemporary Families.</p>
<p><strong>LG</strong><em>: How common is parental estrangement? Do you see trends? So, for instance, is it more common? Or are there patterns&#8211;like does it happen in some groups more than others to the best of your understanding? </em></p>
<p><strong>JC</strong>: A recent meta-analysis on the topic by <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/wol1/doi/10.1111/jftr.12216/full">Lucy Blake</a> notes that while the research on estrangement has grown significantly in the past five years, it is still new and sparse. Therefore, getting a clear assessment of whether estrangement has become more common is challenging.</p>
<p>Based on my clinical experience though, I believe that it is widespread and growing for the following reasons:</p>
<ul>
<li>In the United States, today, and in some other developed Western nations, nothing binds grown children to their parents beyond whether or not the adult child wants that relationship. In the same way that marriages increasingly succeed or fail on the basis of how satisfying or <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Marriage-History-How-Love-Conquered/dp/014303667X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1518823208&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=marriage+a+history">meaningful the relationship</a>, adult children may estrange themselves from a parent based on similar principles or ideals. However, while successful marriages require a somewhat equal level of investment between the partners, typically it’s more incumbent on the parent to be attuned to the needs of the adult child than the other way around.</li>
<li>According to a recent <a href="http://www.iasc-culture.org/survey_archives/IASC_CAF_Survey.pdf">Culture of American Families Survey</a>, today’s parents hope to be best friends with their children for life. While many are succeeding, others may suffer in part because of high parental expectations of meaning and closeness with their children since these feelings occur in tandem with a decrease in social supports and activities for the parents. As a result, some adult children today complain about feeling too needed by their parents, in contrast to earlier eras where parents had richer, more varied networks of support. This is likely why the issue of boundaries is a frequent topic that I hear from adult children (wanting more boundaries) and from their parents (wanting less). Estrangements are sometimes the result of parents and adult children being unable to negotiate those very different needs and perspectives</li>
<li>The use of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Intimacies-Making-Emotional-Capitalism/dp/0745639054/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1518721471&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=cold+intimacies">therapeutic narratives</a> (the language of psychology and self-help) as a way of making sense of life means that now, more than ever, young adults may blame <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Coming-Short-Working-Class-Adulthood-Uncertainty/dp/0190231890/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1518721514&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=jennifer+silva">“dysfunctional families”</a> and poor parenting for the state of their lives rather than other contexts such as lack of decent paying jobs, health care, affordable colleges, etc.</li>
<li>The American culture of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Not-Under-My-Roof-Parents/dp/0226736199/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1518721652&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=not+under+my+roof"><em>adversarial individualism</em></a>, where identity and autonomy are developed in opposition to parental authority, may also increase the risk of estrangement. Family relationships succeed or fail primarily based on whether they are a platform for individuality, growth, and self-actualization. From this vantage point, estrangement can be experienced as an act of existential courage on the part of the adult child.</li>
<li>A rise in the power of children to set the terms of family life, both when children are in the home and out of it means that parental authority to compel contact over the life course has diminished. While it used to be the child’s job to earn the parent’s love and respect, today it’s the parent’s job to earn (and keep earning) that of the child’s</li>
<li>While divorce rates have stabilized, parental divorce at any age may increase the risk of estrangement for the following reasons:
<ol>
<li>It may cause the child to view one of the parents as the cause of breaking up the family.</li>
<li>It may cause one of the parents to overtly or covertly poison the relationship to the other parent.</li>
<li>Remarriage and dating after divorce may bring in new people to the child’s life with whom they must compete for emotional or financial resources.</li>
<li>In a highly individualistic culture like ours, it may cause the child to view the parents more as individuals with their own relative strengths and weaknesses rather than as a family unit to which they also belong.</li>
</ol>
</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>LG</strong><em>: What are some of the biggest hurdles that estranged parents have to get over to live with&#8211;or change&#8211;the situation?</em></p>
<p><strong>JC</strong>: There are several common obstacles to resolving conflict with an estranged adult child:</p>
<ul>
<li>An inability on the part of the parent to see that the use of guilt or demands for a return on parental investment in the form of time or attention will backfire. Most adult children raised in the past 3 decades or so are likely to have been socialized with the belief that relationships, including those with parents, should be a platform for personal growth and the maintenance of happiness. From that perspective, the organizing principle is based more on those themes rather than historically earlier ones around obligation, respect, and duty.</li>
<li>It’s important for parents to be able to take responsibility and empathize with the adult child’s perspective, even if it’s at odds with their own.</li>
<li>Marriage of the adult child is also a common source of estrangement when the parent or parents don’t get along with the new spouse of their adult child.</li>
</ul>
<p>In general, most reconciliations require the parent to take the initiative. However, there are many reasons why an adult child might not be willing, despite the parent’s efforts:</p>
<ul>
<li>He/she may have been successfully poisoned against the parent by the other parent after divorce.</li>
<li>The adult child’s spouse may prevent the adult child from reconciling either because they feel too threatened by the adult child’s attachment to the parent or because of their dislike of them.</li>
<li>The adult child, or a parent, may have a subtle or overt form of mental illness which makes the relationship too challenging, despite the relative health of one or the other.</li>
<li>The adult child may know no other way to feel separate from the parent than to engage in estrangement. This sometimes occurs in homes where the child felt overly dependent on or enmeshed with the parent.</li>
<li>The adult child may feel too hurt or mistrustful of the parent as a result of the parent’s earlier problematic behavior.</li>
</ul>
<p>The following are some common obstacles to reconciliation on the part of the parent:</p>
<ul>
<li>The parent may not be psychologically able to express empathy for the adult child’s complaints because of their own emotional challenges. Thus, they may experience the adult child’s reasonable complaints as an unfair attack against them.</li>
<li>The parent may be unwilling to change in ways desired by the adult child- for example, to be willing to accept their sexuality, religion, career path, partner choice, parenting style; or their requests to criticize less or demand less.</li>
<li>The parent may not be able modify their demands for time and attention to be more in line with those of the adult child. Therefore, the adult child may eventually choose estrangement as a way to stop feeling chronically guilty or misunderstood.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>LG</strong><em>: Is there such a thing as &#8220;recovery&#8221; from estrangement? I think it might take your whole book to describe, but can you tell us a little bit about what recovery might look like?</em></p>
<p><strong>JC</strong>: In general, reconciliations are the most likely when parents can do the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>Empathize with the adult child’s complaints and take responsibility for whatever mistakes were made</li>
<li>Avoid being defensive, qualifying, or explaining</li>
<li>Show commitment to working on the relationship</li>
<li>Accept the adult child’s terms for frequency and length of contact</li>
<li>Accept the ways that the adult child is different from the parent without shaming or criticizing them.</li>
</ul>
<p>On the part of the adult child, reconciliation is more likely if they can:</p>
<ul>
<li>Show compassion for the parent’s limitations as a person or parent</li>
<li>Acknowledge that expectations of parents and parenting have risen and therefore, what seems like ineffectual or problematic parenting today, may have constituted reasonable parenting during their childrearing years</li>
<li>Accept that the more attuned and psychological form of communication common today is relatively recent in parent-adult child relations and therefore learning this may take some time and practice on the part of the parent.</li>
</ul>
<div class="author-bios author-bios-bottom">
<p><em>Joshua Coleman is a clinical psychologist, author, and media expert on individuals, couples, and families. Twitter: @drjcoleman. For more information about estrangement, visit www.drjoshuacoleman.com. </em></p>
<p><em>Luilly DeJesus Gonzalez is a senior sociology major at Framingham State University and a CCF Public Affairs Intern.</em></p>
</div>
<div class="author-bios author-bios-bottom"><p><em>Joshua Coleman is a clinical psychologist, author, and media expert on individuals, couples, and families. Twitter: @drjcoleman. For more information about estrangement, visit www.drjoshuacoleman.com. </em></p>
<p><em>Luilly DeJesus Gonzalez is a senior sociology major at Framingham State University and a CCF Public Affairs Intern.</em></p>
</div>On Informed Complacency and the Potential Decline of Curiosityhttps://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2018/03/13/on-informed-complacency-and-the-potential-decline-of-curiosity/If I were to ask you a question, and neither of us knew the answer, what would you do? You’d Google it, right? Me too. After you figure out the right wording and hit the search button, at what point would you be satisfied enough with Google’s answer to say that you’ve gained new knowledge? [&#8230;]Clayton d'Arnault at CyborgologyTue, 13 Mar 2018 11:00:05 +0000https://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2018/03/13/on-informed-complacency-and-the-potential-decline-of-curiosity/<p><a href="https://i0.wp.com/thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/files/2018/03/Google-On-Your-Smartphone-Internet-Www-Search-1796337.jpg?ssl=1"><img alt="" class="size-large wp-image-23217" height="333" src="https://i0.wp.com/thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/files/2018/03/Google-On-Your-Smartphone-Internet-Www-Search-1796337.jpg?resize=500%2C333&#038;ssl=1" width="500" /></a></p>
<p>If I were to ask you a question, and neither of us knew the answer, what would you do? You’d Google it, right? Me too. After you figure out the right wording and hit the search button, at what point would you be satisfied enough with Google’s answer to say that you’ve gained new knowledge? Judging from the current socio-technical circumstances, I’d be hard-pressed to say that many of us would make it past the featured snippet, let alone the first page of results.</p>
<p>The internet—along with the complementary technologies we’ve developed to increase its accessibility—enriches our lives by affording us access to the largest information repository ever conceived. Despite physical barriers, we can share, explore, and store facts, opinions, theories, and philosophies alike. As such, this vast repository contains many answers to many questions derived from many distinct perspectives. These socio-technical circumstances are undeniably promising for the distribution and development of knowledge. However, in 2008, tech-critic Nicholas Carr posed a counter argument about the internet and its impact on our cognitive abilities by asking readers a simple question: is Google making us stupid? <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/#filter:annotator:cjdarnault">In his controversial article</a> published by <em>The Atlantic</em>, Carr blames the internet for our diminishing ability to form “rich mental connections,” and supposes that technology and the internet are instruments of intentional distraction. While I agree with Carr’s sentiment that the way we think has changed, I don’t agree that the fault falls on the internet. I believe we expect too much of Google and less of ourselves; therefore, the fault (if there is fault) is largely our own.<span id="more-23216"></span></p>
<p>Here’s why: Carr’s argument hinges on the idea that technology definitively determines our society’s structural and cultural values—a theory known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_determinism">technological determinism</a>. However, he fails to recognize <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0270467617714944">the theory of affordance</a> in this argument. Affordances refer to the way in which the features of a technology interact with agentic users and diverse circumstances. While the technical and material elements of technology <em>do</em> have shaping effects, they are far from determined. Affordance theory suggests that the technologies we use and the internet infrastructures from which they draw, contain multipotentiality: they afford the potential to indulge in curiosity and develop robust knowledge while simultaneously affording the potential to relinquish curiosity and develop complacency through the comforts of convenience and <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/science-choice/201504/what-is-confirmation-bias">self-confirmation</a>.</p>
<p>Considering the initial sentiment of Carr’s argument (the way we think has changed) together with affordance theory, we can derive two critical questions: have we embraced complacency and become too comfortable with the internet&#8217;s knowledge production capabilities? If so, by choosing to rest on our laurels and exploit this affordance, what happens to epistemic curiosity?</p>
<p>There’s a lot to unpack, but in order to address these questions, we need to examine the potential socio-technical circumstances that could lead us down a path of declining epistemic curiosity, starting with the binary ideas of convenience and complacency.</p>
<p>Complacency is characterized by the feeling of being satisfied with how things are and not wanting to try to make them better. Clearly, in terms of making life more efficient, we are nowhere near complacent, as we constantly strive to streamline our lives through innovation—from fire to the invention of (arguably) our greatest creation to date and the basis for our modernity: information and communication technology. This technology affords us the ability to live more convenient, effortless lives by providing access to the world’s knowledge with the tap of a finger and the ability to do more in a few moments than previous generations could do in hours.</p>
<p>For instance, education has become much more convenient. Thanks to the internet, you can take advantage of distance learning programs and earn a degree on your own terms, without physically attending class. The workforce has also become more flexible, as technology allows us to maximize time and stay on top of our work through complete mobility, and in some cases, complete task automation. Economically, the internet allows us to sell and consume goods and services without the physical limitations of brick and mortar. It also allows us to communicate with friends, family, and strangers over long distances, document our lives, access current events with ease, and answer a question within moments of it popping into our heads.</p>
<p>These conveniences <em>must </em>make life better, right?</p>
<p>Think of these conveniences like your bed on a cold morning: warm and comfortable, convincing you to hit snooze and stay a while longer. This warmth and comfort can be a source of sustenance and strength; however, if we stay too long, comfort can get the best of us. We might become lazy, hesitating to diverge from the <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170221101016.htm">path of least resistance</a>.</p>
<p>Just as it is inadvisable to regularly snooze until noon, it is concerning when information and knowledge are accessed too easily, too quickly. With the increased accessibility and speed of information, it’s easy to become desensitized to curiosity—the very intuition that is responsible for our technological progress—in the same way that you are desensitized to your breathing pattern or heartbeat. By following the path of least resistance, we can create a dynamic in which we perceive the internet as a mere convenience instead of a tool to stimulate our thoughts about the world around us. This convenience dynamic allows us to settle into a state of complacency in which we are certain that everything we think and believe can be justified through a quick Google search—because, in fact, it can be. That feeling of certainty and comfort that stems from this technical ability to self-confirm is, what I call, informed complacency.</p>
<p>The idea of informed complacency is especially fraught because it signifies a turning point in our perception of contemporary knowledge. Ultimately, it can encourage us to develop an underlying sense of omniscient modernity, which Adam Kirch discusses in his article for <em>The New Yorker,</em> “<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/05/the-dream-of-enlightenment-by-anthony-gottlieb">Are We Really So Modern?</a>”:</p>
<blockquote><p><em>“Modernity cannot be identified with any particular technological or social breakthrough. Rather, it is a subjective condition, a feeling or an intuition that we are in some profound sense different from the people who lived before us. Modern life, which we tend to think of as an accelerating series of gains in knowledge, wealth, and power over nature, is predicated on a loss: the loss of contact with the past.”</em></p></blockquote>
<p>In the past, nothing was certain. The information our ancestors had on the world and universe was constantly being overturned and molded into something else entirely. Renowned thinkers from across the ages built and destroyed theories like they were children with LEGO bricks—especially during the Golden Age of Athens (fourth and fifth centuries B.C.) and the Enlightenment (seventeenth and eighteenth centuries A.D.). Each time they thought they had it figured out, the world as they knew it came crashing down with a new discovery:</p>
<blockquote><p><em>“The discovery of America destroyed established geography, the Reformation destroyed the established Church, and astronomy destroyed the established cosmos. Everything that educated people believed about reality turned out to be an error or, worse, a lie. It’s impossible to imagine what, if anything, could produce a comparable effect on us today”</em></p></blockquote>
<p>Today, we still face uncertainty, albeit a different kind. With the glut of empirical evidence on the internet, multiple versions of objective reality flourish even as they conflict. These multiple truths create a dynamic information environment that makes it difficult to differentiate between fact, theory, and fiction, increasing the likelihood that whatever one thinks is true can easily be confirmed as such. With this sentiment in mind, by following the path of least resistance and developing a sense of informed complacency, we risk developing a sense of omniscient modernity and over-comprehending our ability to know, because we are certain that we know—or can know—everything, past, present, and future, with the click of a button or the tap of a finger.</p>
<p>Though a dynamic information environment has clear benefits for epistemic curiosity—better science, more informed debates, an engaged citizenry—the tilt of the affordance scale towards complacency always remains a lingering possibility. If we begin to lean in this direction, I contend that informed complacency is likely to take hold and lead us to ignorance and insularity amid a saturated information environment. This can create cognitive traps that, in the worst instance, diminish epistemic curiosity.</p>
<p>One of these traps is called the immediate gratification bias, which Tim Urban of <em>Wait But Why</em>, has playfully dubbed the “<a href="https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrastinate.html">Instant Gratification Monkey</a>”. He describes this predisposition as “thinking only about the present, ignoring lessons from the past and disregarding the future altogether, and concerning yourself entirely with maximizing the ease and pleasure of the current moment.” As a result of this predisposition, there is <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-on-demand-economy-2014-7">an increasing demand</a> for instant services like Uber, Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Tinder, which testifies that the notions of ease and instancy have infiltrated our thought-process, compelling us to apply them to every other aspect of our lives. The increase in the speed at which we consume information has molded us to rely on and expect instant results for everything. Consequently, we are likely to base our information decisions on this principle and choose not to dig past surface-level.</p>
<p>Another trap is found in gluttonous information habits—devouring as much of it as we can, as quickly as possible, solely for the sake of hoarding what we consider to be knowledge. In all our modernity, it seems that we misguidedly assume that consuming information at a faster pace is beneficial to the development of knowledge, when in fact, too much information (information overload) <a href="https://digitalculturist.com/drowning-in-a-sea-of-information-563a3160efbb">can have overwhelming, negative effects</a>, such as the inability to make the “rich mental connections” Carr describes in his article. This trap is amplified by pressures to stay “in the know” as well as the market of apps and services that capitalize on a pervasive fear of missing out, transforming the pursuit of knowledge from an act of personal curiosity to a social requirement.</p>
<p>The complex algorithms deployed by search engine and social media conglomerates to manage our vast aggregates of information curate content in ways users are likely to experience not only as useful, but pleasurable. These algorithmic curations are purposefully designed to keep information platforms sticky; to keep users engaged, and ultimately sell data and attention. These are the conditions under which another cognitive trap arises: the filter bubble. By personally analyzing each individual user’s interests, the algorithms place them in a filtered environment in which only agreeable information makes its way to the top of their screens. Therefore, we are constantly able to confirm our own personal ideologies, rendering any news that disagrees with one’s established viewpoints as “fake news.” In this context, <a href="https://www.flashforwardpod.com/2016/12/06/extra-extra/">it’s easy to believe everything we read on the internet</a>, even if it’s not true. This makes it difficult to accurately assess the truthfulness and credibility of news sources online, as truth value seems to be measured by virality rather than veracity.</p>
<p>Ultimately, with his argument grounded in technological determinism, Carr overlooks the perspective that technology cannot define its own purpose. As its creators and users, <em>we</em> negotiate how technology integrates into our lives. The affordances of digital knowledge repositories create the capacity for unprecedented curiosity and the advancement of human thought. However, they also enable us to be complacent, misinformed, and superficially satisfied; that is to say, an abundance of easily accessed information does not always mean persistent curiosity and improved knowledge. To preserve epistemic curiosity and avoid informed complacency, we should keep reminding ourselves of this and practice conscious information consumption habits. This means recognizing how algorithms filter content; seeking diverse perspectives and content sources; questioning, critiquing, and evaluating news and information; and perhaps most importantly, always do your best to venture past the first page of Google search results. Who knows, you might find something that challenges everything you believe.</p>
<p><em>Clayton d&#8217;Arnault is the Editor of </em><a href="https://thedisconnect.co/"><em>The Disconnect</em></a><em>, a new digital magazine that forces you to disconnect from the internet. He is also the Founding Editor of </em><a href="https://digitalculturist.com/"><em>Digital Culturist</em></a><em>. Find him on Twitter </em><a href="https://twitter.com/cjdarnault"><em>@cjdarnault</em></a><em>.</em></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Headline pic via: <a href="http://maxpixel.freegreatpicture.com/Google-On-Your-Smartphone-Internet-Www-Search-1796337">Source</a></p>Fake News…Part Twohttps://thesocietypages.org/dean/2018/03/11/fake-news-part-two/A couple of weeks ago I posted a note about an online game designed to help people detect fake news. This game is even more timely than I initially thought, as I just learned about a new research study that found that falsehoods are more popular than truths on Twitter. The study &#8220;analyzes every major [&#8230;]Walt Jacobs at Dispatches from a DeanSun, 11 Mar 2018 20:42:27 +0000https://thesocietypages.org/dean/2018/03/11/fake-news-part-two/<p>A couple of weeks ago I posted a note about an <a href="https://thesocietypages.org/dean/2018/02/26/fake-news-game/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">online game designed to help people detect fake news</a>. This game is even more timely than I initially thought, as I just learned about a new <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/03/largest-study-ever-fake-news-mit-twitter/555104/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">research study that found that falsehoods are more popular than truths on Twitter</a>. The study &#8220;analyzes every major contested news story in English across the span of Twitter’s existence—some 126,000 stories, tweeted by 3 million users, over more than 10 years—and finds that the truth simply cannot compete with hoax and rumor. By every common metric, falsehood consistently dominates the truth on Twitter, the study finds: Fake news and false rumors reach more people, penetrate deeper into the social network, and spread much faster than accurate stories.&#8221; Wow!</p>TSP’s Weekly Roundup: March 9, 2018https://thesocietypages.org/editors/2018/03/09/tsps-weekly-roundup-march-9-2018/Hi Folks! Evan here, subbing in for your usual Friday roundup from Allison Nobles. Read on for the latest social science on everything from big money and body cameras to student activists and a smash stage production in the Twin Cities. Happy Friday! There’s Research on That!: &#8220;When Youth Become Activists,&#8221; by Amber Joy Powell. [&#8230;]Evan Stewart at The Editors' DeskFri, 09 Mar 2018 12:00:37 +0000https://thesocietypages.org/editors/2018/03/09/tsps-weekly-roundup-march-9-2018/<p><a href="https://thesocietypages.org/editors/files/2018/03/RU030918.png" title=""><img alt="" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-5011" height="337" src="https://thesocietypages.org/editors/files/2018/03/RU030918-600x337.png" width="600" /></a></p>
<p>Hi Folks! Evan here, subbing in for your usual Friday roundup from Allison Nobles. Read on for the latest social science on everything from big money and body cameras to student activists and a smash stage production in the Twin Cities. Happy Friday!</p>
<h3><a href="https://thesocietypages.org/trot/">There’s Research on That!</a>:</h3>
<p>&#8220;<a href="https://thesocietypages.org/trot/2018/03/08/when-youth-become-activists/">When Youth Become Activists</a>,&#8221; by <a href="https://thesocietypages.org/people/amber-powell/">Amber Joy Powell</a>. Youth play a vital role in shaping social movements. Sociological studies on movements and young people’s mobilization help us understand the energy behind their activism.</p>
<h3><a href="https://thesocietypages.org/discoveries/">Discoveries</a>:</h3>
<p>&#8220;<a href="https://thesocietypages.org/discoveries/2018/03/05/big-money-bridging-the-political-divide/">Big Money Bridging the Political Divide</a>,&#8221; by Evan Stewart. New research in <em>American Journal of Sociology </em>shows how longtime donors are more bipartisan than we think.</p>
<h3><a href="https://thesocietypages.org/clippings/">Clippings</a>:</h3>
<p>&#8220;<a href="https://thesocietypages.org/clippings/2018/03/06/why-poor-parents-say-yes-to-junk-food/">Why Poor Parents Say “Yes” to Junk Food</a>,&#8221; by Nahrissa Rush. In a <a href="http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-singh-food-deserts-nutritional-disparities-20180207-story.html">recent op-ed</a> for the <i>Los Angeles Times,</i> <a href="https://sociology.stanford.edu/people/priya-fielding-singh">Priya Fielding-Singh</a> explains that junk food consumption is an emotionally-rooted decision for impoverished parents.</p>
<h3>From Our Partners:</h3>
<h3><a href="https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/">Sociological Images</a>:</h3>
<p>&#8220;<a href="https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2018/03/05/are-we-really-looking-at-body-cameras/">Are We Really Looking at Body Cameras?</a>&#8221; by Evan Stewart</p>
<h3><a href="https://contexts.org/">Contexts</a>:</h3>
<p>&#8220;<a href="https://contexts.org/blog/auditing-macroeconomic-data-production/?_ga=2.132929227.453528951.1520542027-1251481483.1382637855">Auditing macroeconomic data production</a>,&#8221; by Andrew Kerner and Charles Crabtree</p>
<h3><a href="https://thesocietypages.org/ccf/">Council on Contemporary Families</a>:</h3>
<p>&#8220;<a href="https://thesocietypages.org/ccf/2018/03/06/trevor-hoppe-on-punishing-disease/">Three Questions for Trevor Hoppe on Punishing Disease</a>&#8221; by Arielle Kuperberg</p>
<h3>And a Few from the Community Pages:</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://thesocietypages.org/holocaust-genocide/">Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies</a> looks at<a href="https://thesocietypages.org/holocaust-genocide/guthrie-theatre-presents-indecent/"> a local production of Paula Vogel&#8217;s <em>Indecent</em></a></li>
</ul>
<h3><a href="https://thesocietypages.org/editors/2018/03/02/tsps-weekly-roundup-march-2-2018/">Last Week’s Roundup</a></h3>
<h3><a href="https://thesocietypages.org/roundup">Sign Up for Inbox Delivery of the Roundup</a></h3>
<h3><a href="http://books.wwnorton.com/books/book-template.aspx?ser=The+Society+Pages">TSP Edited Volumes</a></h3>When Youth Become Activistshttps://thesocietypages.org/trot/2018/03/08/when-youth-become-activists/“They say&#8230;That us kids don&#8217;t know what we&#8217;re talking about, that we&#8217;re too young to understand how the government works. We call BS.” &#8211;Emma Gonzalez Many of us are still reeling over the killing of 17 students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida nearly three weeks ago. Since then, lawmakers, advocates, and concerned [&#8230;]Amber Joy Powell at There's Research on ThatThu, 08 Mar 2018 13:00:31 +0000https://thesocietypages.org/trot/2018/03/08/when-youth-become-activists/<figure class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_1888"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/fibonacciblue/39513397825/"><img alt="" class="size-large wp-image-1888" height="401" src="https://thesocietypages.org/trot/files/2018/03/39513397825_75b74ab801_z-600x401.jpg" width="600" /></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Minneapolis High School Students Protest for Gun Law Reform. Photo by Fibonacci Blue, Flickr CC</figcaption></figure>
<h4 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">“They say&#8230;That us kids don&#8217;t know what we&#8217;re talking about, that we&#8217;re too young to understand how the government works. We call BS.” &#8211;</span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/17/us/florida-student-emma-gonzalez-speech/index.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Emma Gonzalez</span></a></h4>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Many of us are still reeling over the </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/police-respond-shooting-parkland-florida-high-school-n848101"><span style="font-weight: 400;">killing of 17 students</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida nearly three weeks ago. Since then, lawmakers, advocates, and concerned citizens have called for </span><a href="http://www.newsweek.com/gun-control-measures-americans-support-824806"><span style="font-weight: 400;">stricter US gun control laws</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> &#8212; particularly for assault weapons. Those spearheading the current movement are the teenage survivors of the shooting like Emma Gonzalez and Cameron Kasky. Students around the country are joining their peers in Parkland, Florida for the first annual </span><a href="https://www.marchforourlives.com/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">March for Our Lives</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> rally later this month. From the Freedom Riders and 1960s anti-war protesters to Black Lives Matter and Me Too, youth have played a vital role in shaping social movements. Sociological studies on social movements and young people’s mobilization help us understand the energies behind their activism.</span></p>
<h5>School environments, social networks, and families influence youth civic participation in activities such as volunteering, voting, and engaging in political protest. Campus life, for example, fosters political action by exposing students to an array of social issues, allowing them to congregate in nearby locations, introducing youth to new social networks, and provide the free time necessary to organize. Families where parents were highly politically-involved may also increase youth likelihood of participating in political action. At the same time, parents may serve as a hindrance for some youth, as young women and girls may be more likely to experience parental opposition to their political activism.</h5>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://jearl.faculty.arizona.edu/content/jennifer-earl-professor-sociology"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Jennifer Earl</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, </span><a href="http://thomasvmaher.weebly.com/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Thomas V. Maher</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, </span><a href="https://sociology.csuci.edu/Faculty_Pages/elliott.htm"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Thomas Elliott</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. 2017. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">“</span><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/soc4.12465/abstract"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Youth, Activism, and Social Movements</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.” </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Sociology Compass</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> 11(4): 1-14.</span></li>
<li><a href="http://www.drfisher.umd.edu/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dana R. Fischer</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. 2012. “</span><a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-soc-071811-145439"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Youth Political Participation: Bridging Activism and Electoral Politics</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.” </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Annual Review of Sociology</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> 38: 119-137.</span></li>
<li><a href="https://www.unibo.it/sitoweb/elvira.cicognani"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Elvira Cicognania</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, </span><a href="https://weheartit.com/entry/23561856"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Bruna Zania</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, Bernard Fournier, </span><a href="http://web.philo.ulg.ac.be/ferulg/gavray-claire/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Claire Gavray</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, and Michel Born. 2012. “</span><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140197111001254"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Gender Differences in Youths’ Political Engagement and Participation. The Role of Parents and of Adolescents’ Social and Civic Participation</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.” </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Journal of Adolescence</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> 35(3): 561-576.</span></li>
<li><a href="https://www.du.edu/ahss/sociology/facultystaff/gordon.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Hava Rachel Gordan</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. 2008. “</span><a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0891243207311046"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Gendered Paths to Teenage Political Participation: Parental Power, </span></a></li>
<li><a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0891243207311046"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Civic Mobility, and Youth Activism</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.”</span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Gender &amp; Society</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> 22(1): 31-55.</span></li>
</ul>
<h5>Attention to youth activism raises questions about the effectiveness of political protest more generally. Recalling the 1960 Black student-led sit-in during the Civil Rights movement, one study found that southern cities with sit-ins were more likely to desegregate lunch counters in the months following protest. These social movement successes are often the product of effective framing strategies that depict certain social problems as moral injustices. Moral frames often include identifying victims, blaming those responsible for their victimization, and calling individuals to act against the injustice. Different from prior waves of activism, however, newer generations can utilize social media to transmit moral frames to the broader public. Youth of color, for example, have used profile picture changes, comics, memes, and hashtags to garner support against police brutality and anti-immigration policies.</h5>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://users.ox.ac.uk/~sfos0060/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Michael Biggs</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> and </span><a href="http://kta.web.unc.edu/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Kenneth T. Andrews</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. 2015. “</span><a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0003122415574328"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Protest Campaigns and Movement Success: Desegregating the South in the Early 1960s</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.” </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">American Sociological Review</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> 80:416-443.</span></li>
<li><a href="http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=OCHhp50AAAAJ&amp;hl=en"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Robert D. Benford</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> and </span><a href="http://faculty.sites.uci.edu/dsnow/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">David A. Snow</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. 2000. “</span><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/223459"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Framing Processes and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.” </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Annual Review of Sociology</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> 26: 611-639.</span></li>
<li><a href="http://henryjenkins.org/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Henry Jenkins</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, </span><a href="https://ypp.dmlcentral.net/people/sangita-shresthova-0"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Sangita Shresthova</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, </span><a href="https://ypp.dmlcentral.net/people/liana-gamber-thompson"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Liana Gamber-Thompson</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, </span><a href="http://www.netakv.com/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Neta Kligler-Vilenchik</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, and </span><a href="https://inside.mills.edu/academics/faculty/eths/arzimmerman/arzimmerman.php"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Arely Zimmerman</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. 2016. </span><a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9781479899982/"><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">By Any Media Necessary: The New Youth Activism</span></i></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. New York: New York University Press.</span></li>
</ul>Guthrie Theatre Presents “Indecent”https://thesocietypages.org/holocaust-genocide/guthrie-theatre-presents-indecent/From now until March 24, the Guthrie Theater is presenting Paula Vogel’s Indecent. Surely, this is the 21st century’s greatest play about the Jewish experience in 20th century Europe and America. It’s a play about a play—Polish (later American) author Solomon Asch’s The God of Vengeance, one of Yiddish theatre’s most famous plays (along with [&#8230;]Daniel Pinkerton at Center for Holocaust & Genocide StudiesWed, 07 Mar 2018 14:08:25 +0000https://thesocietypages.org/holocaust-genocide/guthrie-theatre-presents-indecent/<p>From now until March 24, the Guthrie Theater is presenting Paula Vogel’s <em>Indecent</em>. Surely, this is the 21<sup>st</sup> century’s greatest play about the Jewish experience in 20<sup>th</sup> century Europe and America.</p>
<p><img alt="" class=" wp-image-2349 alignright" height="255" src="https://thesocietypages.org/holocaust-genocide/files/2018/03/Screen-Shot-2018-03-06-at-10.49.01-PM-1024x970.png" width="269" /></p>
<p>It’s a play about a play—Polish (later American) author Solomon Asch’s <em>The God of Vengeance</em>, one of Yiddish theatre’s most famous plays (along with <em>The Golem</em> and <em>The Dybbuk</em>)—but don’t let that put you off. In the hands of Vogel, the history of this work raises many issues relevant to our current times. Plus, the lively staging by Wendy Goldberg includes a good deal of Klezmer music and Jewish dance (choreography by Yehuda Hyman), so the heartbreaking story is thoroughly entertaining.</p>
<p><span id="more-2348"></span></p>
<p>Asch’s play,<em> The God of Vengeance,</em> tells the story of a hypocritical brothel owner who lives with his wife and daughter above the bordello. His dream is to keep his own daughter “pure” and a perfect candidate for marriage to a young scholar. But the daughter, Rivkele, falls in love with Manke, one of the prostitutes. One of the highlights of the play is a beautiful love scene between the two women in the rain.</p>
<p>The play premiered in Berlin and played all over Europe (in the original Yiddish) in the first two decades of the 20<sup>th</sup> century to full houses and great acclaim. It was translated into English and presented in America. What happened in our country and after is the crux of <em>Indecent</em>, Vogel’s stunning, theatrical, and moving play. (Like all historical plays and novels, <em>Indecent</em> is a mixture of actual history and invented scenes.)</p>
<p>There is, of course, a Holocaust connection in this play. It’s a play about European Jews in the first half of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, so how could there not be? I won’t spoil the plot, but at the end of the play, Asch says, “I have lost my audience. Six million of them have left the theatre.” In addition, the creative staff of <em>Indecent</em> includes artists who lost relatives in the Holocaust.</p>
<p>A cast of seven actors performs multiple roles. Most of them are superb local actors, including Miriam Schwartz, Hugh Kennedy, Robert Dorfman, Steven Epp, and Sally Wingert. Only Ben Cherry, from the original Broadway production and Gisela Chípe have been imported. Musicians Lisa Gutkin, Spencer Chandler, and Pat O’Keefe also add color and atmosphere to the production, playing throughout almost all the show.</p>
<p>I can’t recommend this show highly enough to anyone and everyone. You don’t have to be Jewish to be enthralled by it. Within its history of Yiddish culture, the play explores themes of tolerance, the clash between established and new immigrants, censorship and self-censorship, and finds the universal by paying attention to the particular. Rush tickets can be obtained for a very reasonable price. You can also obtain tickets by calling 612-377-2224, or going online to www.guthrietheater.org.</p>
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<p><em>Daniel Pinkerton is a playwright and lyricist. He is co-artistic director of Fortune’s Fool Theatre in Minneapolis. For 27 years, he was an editor at the Center for Austrian Studies at the University of Minnesota.</em></p>3Q: Trevor Hoppe on Punishing Diseasehttps://thesocietypages.org/ccf/2018/03/06/trevor-hoppe-on-punishing-disease/Trevor Hoppe is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at SUNY-Albany, and recently published the book Punishing Disease: HIV and the Criminalization of Sickness. The book traces the rise and application of criminal laws used to prosecute people living with HIV in the United States, typically for failing to disclose their status to a sexual partner. [&#8230;]Arielle Kuperberg at Council on Contemporary FamiliesTue, 06 Mar 2018 13:31:53 +0000https://thesocietypages.org/ccf/2018/03/06/trevor-hoppe-on-punishing-disease/<p><img alt="" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-1533" height="300" src="https://thesocietypages.org/ccf/files/2018/02/9780520291607-200x300.jpg" width="200" />Trevor Hoppe is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at SUNY-Albany, and recently published the book <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520291607">Punishing Disease: HIV and the Criminalization of Sickness</a><em>. </em>The book traces the rise and application of criminal laws used to prosecute people living with HIV in the United States, typically for failing to disclose their status to a sexual partner. I recently interviewed him about his book.</p>
<p><strong>AK: Besides HIV and related behavior that you focus on, have other sexual behaviors and diseases been criminalized in recent United States history, and are these laws disproportionately enforced among certain populations? </strong></p>
<p><strong>TH:</strong> The book traces the rise of HIV-specific criminal laws in the 1980s and 1990s, linking that shift towards criminalization to the broader war on crime and particularly the war on drugs. AIDS unfortunately coincided with a massive expansion of the carceral state through Ronald Reagan’s presidency and it was seized upon by evangelical conservatives as a harbinger of moral decline. That made for a unique and deeply punitive response to this epidemic that has no parallel in history or in the years that have followed. During World War II, many states did pass venereal disease statutes, mostly to target prostitutes who were viewed mistakenly as responsible for the spread of syphilis. However, those laws featured misdemeanor penalties and there’s no evidence I could find that that they were widely used.</p>
<p>Recently, states have been moving to expand their felony HIV-specific criminal laws to include other diseases, particularly Hepatitis C. To date, only a handful of states have done so and it’s not clear that they will be widely utilized by prosecutors, as that disease is spread primarily through the sharing of needles, and drug users are not especially likely to call the police to report a needle-sharing partner. By comparison, the sexual transmission aspect of HIV more readily lends itself to a criminal justice response, since the HIV-negative partner can more readily claim victimhood in a criminal courtroom.</p>
<p><strong>AK: You found that lawyers and judges often had very little medical understanding of HIV and how it is transmitted, leading to legal arguments that were inaccurate, but compelling. Did these inaccuracies allow for anyone to appeal their convictions? </strong></p>
<p><strong>TH:</strong> As is the case in the criminal justice system more broadly, most defendants charged under these statutes plead guilty. Once you plead guilty, it’s difficult if not impossible to turn back and show cause for an appeal. Defendants take pleas to avoid the much harsher penalties that come with taking your case to trial. My analysis finds, for example, that male defendants at trial received an average prison sentence of 153 months versus an average of 77 months for male defendants who plead out. Further, there is no evidence that any defendant charged under a felony HIV-specific criminal law in the United States has <em>ever</em> been acquitted at trial. The only cases that do not result in conviction are the rare few that are dismissed, usually because the accuser does not show up to testify. In this context, appeals are few and far between and those that have proceeded are almost universally unsuccessful.</p>
<p>That said, there are many cases I encountered that would appear to a casual onlooker to be ripe for appeal—such as the case of a Michigan stripper convicted for <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/trevor-hoppe/the-county-in-michigan-wh_b_9602758.html">giving a lap dance</a> (the prosecutor claimed the prohibited sexual penetration involved the client’s nose). But in her case and countless others, defendants chose to plea.</p>
<p><strong>AK: If someone does not know their HIV status at the time they expose somebody else, can they be prosecuted under these laws, and if not, do these laws then encourage avoiding HIV testing so that individuals can avoid legal issues? What would be a better policy that could more effectively encourage testing and disclosure of HIV to sexual partners?</strong></p>
<p><strong>TH:</strong> No. HIV-specific laws require that a person be aware of their HIV-status. Advocates often criticize these laws on the basis that they discourage HIV testing. I don’t think there’s good social science evidence to support that claim. Most people who are not currently living with HIV do not know that these laws exist. There are far stronger arguments for demanding legal reform. For example, these laws are extremely broad and can be used to prosecute harmless behaviors, such as spitting, biting, or in at least once case, even a lap dance. The crime is failing to disclose before any sexual contact, whether or not that contact posed a risk of transmission. To this point, less than 10 percent of cases involve an allegation that defendant transmitted the disease to their partner. This is a dangerous precedent. Should partners suffering from noncommunicable diseases, such as cancer, be required to disclose? No. We can obviously recognize that policy intervention as ludicrous. The only reason we can’t say the same for HIV laws is that our vision is clouded with stigma and, too often, obfuscated by ignorance. It is terrible policy to send people to prison for years or even decades for nothing more than causing a sexual partner to experience irrational and, in most cases, unwarranted psychological duress. The best science we have today says that people living with HIV who are on treatment and have a suppressed viral load <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/library/dcl/dcl/092717.html">cannot</a>—<em>cannot</em>—transmit the disease. It’s time for most Americans to wake up and rethink everything they know about HIV. The disease has changed. The laws, unfortunately, have not.</p>
<p><em>Trevor Hoppe is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at SUNY Albany. He is the author of Punishing Disease: HIV and the Criminalization of Sickness, published by University of California Press, and co-editor of The War on Sex, published by Duke University Press. </em><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/arielletk/"><em>Arielle Kuperberg</em></a><em> is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Follow her on twitter at </em><a href="https://twitter.com/ATKuperberg"><em>@ATKuperberg</em></a></p>Why Poor Parents Say “Yes” to Junk Foodhttps://thesocietypages.org/clippings/2018/03/06/why-poor-parents-say-yes-to-junk-food/In the United States, poor parents face intense scrutiny for their purchasing decisions, especially for buying unhealthy food for their children. New research sheds light parents&#8217; decisions to buy or not buy junk food for their kids. In a recent op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, Priya Fielding-Singh explains that junk food consumption is an [&#8230;]Nahrissa Rush at ClippingsTue, 06 Mar 2018 12:00:29 +0000https://thesocietypages.org/clippings/2018/03/06/why-poor-parents-say-yes-to-junk-food/<figure class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_6690"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/73416633@N00/286841933/"><img alt="" class="wp-image-6690" height="400" src="https://thesocietypages.org/clippings/files/2018/03/286841933_e940eb0b99_z.jpg" width="533" /></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Photo by Sandra Cohen-Rose and Colin Rose, Flickr CC</figcaption></figure>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In the United States, poor parents face intense scrutiny for their purchasing decisions, especially for buying unhealthy food for their children. New research sheds light parents&#8217; decisions to buy or not buy junk food for their kids. In a </span><a href="http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-singh-food-deserts-nutritional-disparities-20180207-story.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">recent op-ed</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> for the </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Los Angeles Times,</span></i> <a href="https://sociology.stanford.edu/people/priya-fielding-singh"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Priya Fielding-Singh</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> explains that junk food consumption is an emotionally-rooted decision for impoverished parents.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Fielding-Singh observed the food-purchasing habits of 73 families. Families experiencing poverty honored their children&#8217;s requests for junk food more often than affluent parents. For poor families, junk food was one of few affordable luxuries. It was sometimes the only chance for parents to say “yes” to something their kids asked for. Fielding-Singh notes, </span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">For parents raising their kids in poverty, having to say ‘no’ was a part of daily life. Their financial circumstances forced them to deny their children&#8217;s requests — for a new pair of Nikes, say, or a trip to Disneyland — all the time. This wasn&#8217;t tough for the kids alone; it also left the poor parents feeling guilty and inadequate.”</span></p></blockquote>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">More affluent parents, on the other hand, had the means to grant these more indulgent requests. Saying “no” to junk food was their way of encouraging their children to have better dietary habits, as well as discipline and willpower. This doesn&#8217;t mean poor parents were unconcerned with their children&#8217;s nutrition. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">According to Fielding-Singh, “poor parents honored their kids’ junk food requests to nourish them emotionally, not to harm their health.” So, health disparities are not just about lacking healthy options or resources. This research shows that we also need t0 consider the emotional side of decision-making related to health. </span></p>